president obama made a mistake saying you and i have similar views on social security. >> he is going to have to clarify. in fact, he's already gotten a letter or did last week from senators, 29 of them, want to know where the president is on social security. that's the point i made last night. he may have opened up a can of worms for himself. sam, specifically, to what degree must president obama dismantle romney's outright lies on a host of issues? i mean, this is where the campaign is right now, isn't it? >> well, it's tough to get a sense of where they are, you know, because there hasn't been really good reporting about what they were thinking going into that debate. i think e.j.'s right. on one hand they didn't want to come off as sort of the aggressor. so the trajectory is in obama's favor. keep in mind if you look at the map, he has to win ohio, wisconsin and iowa and keep the states he won -- and keep the kerry map. he'll end up the next president of the united states. they have a very easy path to victory. they didn't want to upset the trajectory. i think if you have a few mo